Blogaround

1. A whirlwind history of asexual communities (August 7) Very cool.

2. Why The Rebelution’s Modesty Survey Was A Bad Idea: Shaney Irene’s Story (2013) "The survey allowed little to no room for the idea that, 'Hey, maybe just because the majority of guys think a girl is being immodest, doesn’t mean she actually is.'" PREACH!

I'm sure I've linked to this on my blog before, but I just came across it again and had to share it again because The Modesty Survey had a big effect on me back when I was so pure and repressed and on fire for God. (It has since been removed from The Rebelution's website.)

I remember reading carefully through all the stats, very concerned, putting numbers into an excel sheet to try to sort out which of the questions had a high enough rate of guys saying "this is a stumbling block" that I would need to take them into account and change my own clothing-wearing habits. 

Thinking about it now, if I came across something like that now- where a bunch of boys give their opinions on what clothes girls should or shouldn't wear- I'd be like "What on earth? This is none of their damn business" and not even bother to read through it. And actually, I remember back then, when I had so much confusion and anxiety over it, over the idea that I had to let this minefield of impossible standards control my clothing choices every morning, and also boys are all raping me in their minds- I remember I shared a link to The Modesty Survey on Facebook, as an attempt to find someone who would leave a comment and help me make sense of it. And someone did comment- she said it made her so angry that apparently people believe women's clothing is to blame for men's behavior. She called it "rape culture." This was an acquaintance that I had argued with A LOT about LGBT issues (because, back then, I was doing the whole "hate the sin, love the sinner" thing, like, of course we love gay people, but it would be unloving not to tell them that "acting on it" is a sin). I remember being so confused by her comment- rape culture? what? but Christians believe you can't do anything sexual at all! so of course we believe rape is a sin!- but I mean, yeah, she was right, it's rape culture.

Also, I always felt it was COMPLETELY ABSURD when Christians who believed in the concept of modesty (ie, "you need to cover up, to help the boys") were not on board with The Modesty Survey. (They said it was "too extreme" or they tried to add disclaimers that said "women should be modest so as not to cause men to lust, but that doesn't mean we should put men in charge of dictating what women should wear" like what on earth, that's EXACTLY what it means.) Like, the very thing that these Christian role models are teaching girls is "oh you just can't understand what it's like for boys, because you're girls, that's completely different, oh but if only you knew, if only you could understand how hard it is for boys, how much they STRUGGLE with LUST, and how boys consume and sexualize girls who dress like that" like OBVIOUSLY if you buy into that, the logical thing to do is to make a survey and ask a bunch of boys detailed questions about what does or doesn't "cause them to stumble." Like, wow, what an incredibly useful resource, if you buy into that ideology. That is exactly the set of the statistics you would want to have, if you truly believe that "girls need to cover up, so they don't cause a brother in Christ to stumble."

3. 3 Doors Down - Here Without You (Official Music Video) (2009) A song for those of us- like me- who are homesick.

4. All Rainwater is Unsafe to Drink According to Study (August 15)

5. 太卷了！为拍上海外滩的环金串月，摄影爱好者前一天晚上就抢占好机位... ["Wow! To get a photo of the moon passing through the eye of a Shanghai skyscraper, photographers claim their spots the night before..."] (August 14) This is incredible! The article is in Chinese, but it has a lot of pictures, so don't be intimidated. (Although, uh, I am not sure if the pictures will load if you're outside of China...)

Basically, it's about this:

A full moon is visible through the trapezoidal hole at the top of Shanghai's "bottle-opener building," A tall post from another skyscraper is in front of the moon, looking like the pupil slit of an eye.

(Here it is on douyin too.)

Shanghai's Eye of Sauron.

6. The Feds are investigating the Southern Baptist Convention for sexual abuse (August 13) GOOD. FINALLY. Like Jesus said, there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.

7. Salman Rushdie will never be safe. That’s what fundamentalism is. (August 12) "Thirty-three years have passed since Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pronounced a fatwa (an Islamic legal ruling) demanding Rushdie’s execution for the nonsensical crime of blasphemy."

8. Kindergartner kicked out of Baptist school after adoption by lesbian couple (August 11) "You’ll never see a news story about a Christian school kicking out a child because her parents spent a weekend gambling in Vegas. But if that child has loving same-sex parents, it’s a five-alarm fire."

9. The ‘blasphemy’ of Beth Moore crushing on Jesus because of grapes (August 19) This is... wow, this is bonkers. Imagine getting all bent out of shape and throwing around accusations of "blasphemy" just because someone tweeted about having a crush on Jesus.

Like on the one hand, I'm fascinated, and I want to explore the nuances of this. Evangelical Christians constantly sing songs about how we love Jesus so much, and it's a well-known running joke that you can play "is this a song about your boyfriend, or Jesus?" with A LOT of popular Christian music. But the moment Beth Moore uses the word "crush", suddenly that gets a different response- perhaps because "crush" is an explicitly romantic word, and maybe has some connotations of being something that happens to silly teenage girls. 

Being in the asexual community, I think a lot about the different kinds of attraction (sexual attraction, romantic attraction, sensual attraction, aesthetic attraction, etc), and now I'm wondering, which ones are "okay" ways to be "attracted" to Jesus? What would that even mean, using "attraction" in a religious context?

But on the other hand, I'm like, lol patriarchal Christian men are mad about something, what else is new, it's not worth my time to care.